Caught on camera: Eagle in NJ defends hawk that tries to attack

Mar. 29, 2013

HILLSBOROUGH — In a battle between an apparently hungry hawk and an angry eagle, the hawk never stood a chance.

And it was over fast.

The remarkable encounter was captured on video at Duke Farms, the estate garden in Somerset County whose Eagle Cam has been keeping track of a bald eagle pair since 2008. Each year the pair breeds and watches over their eggs and hatchlings until they’re ready to leave the nest, and this year was no different.

Duke Farms officials say this year’s pair of eaglets were either newly hatched or about to hatch when a red-tailed hawk approached the nest a little after 5:30 p.m. Sunday.

But one of the eagle parents saw him coming.

“You can still see pieces of the hawk still sitting there now,” Duke Farms Director of Stewardship Thom Almendinger said. “There are a lot of feathers in the upper left corner of the nest.”

In the video, the eagle parent, sitting on the nest, extends its wings and opens its beak wide just before the hawk arrives. In an instant, it’s on top of the intruder. A few vicious slashes with razor-sharp talons, and the hawk is subdued for good. The struggle is over in no more than 10 seconds.

During the next few minutes, the eagle leisurely feasts, feathers clinging to its beak.

“I’m sure it happens often, but it’s not caught on video very often,” Almendinger said. “It was pretty wild.”

Duke Farms officials have a DVR that records everything that goes on the nest, so it wasn’t until later that they discovered the dramatic footage. Apparently the hawk never came close to harming its presumed prey — as of Thursday the eaglets were alive and well, enjoying meals of fish being flown in by their parents.

It was just the latest in a long line of thrilling moments captured on video here, though.

The Eagle Cam has amassed nearly 8 million views in its five years of operation, with users logging on from as far away as Japan, Switzerland, Uruguay, India and the Middle East, Almendinger noted.

Sunday afternoon’s battle might not even have been the most bizarre feast recorded by the camera.

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“Before this hawk intrusion, the weirdest thing we had seen so far was them (the parents) bringing a whole fawn (to the nest),” Almendinger said. “I don’t think they killed it, but they’re famous for eating carrion, just like vultures.”

Can a bald eagle really carry something as heavy as a fawn?

“Apparently,” he said.

The eagle pair has raised nearly 15 hatchlings in all since 2005, and the youngsters typically leave the nest in June or July each year. The Eagle Cam can be tough to maintain — Hurricane Irene knocked out the camera system in 2011, and superstorm Sandy ripped down the whole nest in 2012.

The pair had the nest rebuilt completely in barely two weeks. It took considerably longer to get the video camera system back in place.

The national bird of the United States, the bald eagle was nearly driven to extinction during the 1970s, when pesticides like DDT decimated populations nationwide. The chemical, which accumulates in fish, a primary food source, caused the bird to lay eggs with thin shells that would break in the nest. But the species has rebounded in a huge way in recent decades; according to National Geographic, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service not long ago upgraded the birds from “endangered” to “threatened.”

Bald eagles, which are said to mate for life, can live up to nearly 30 years and have wingspans of 6 to 8 feet.

That doesn’t present very good odds to hawks, which are far smaller — and this particular red-tailed hawk appeared to be a juvenile.

“The opportunity was there, so I guess it (the eagle) was doing two things,” Almendinger said. “Defending its house and its young, and (saying), ‘If there’s a meal being delivered, I might as well do something with it.’ ”